How viable are DA Assault Squads?

[jeremy1391]

When used with a chaplain or interrogator they are pretty awesome.

[march10k]

With an interrogator, a shoot, then HoW-charging assault squad will wipe a tactical squad on the charge...but that's not really a fair comparison, because the chappy costs as much as the squad, effectively making them cost twice what the poor tactical squad did. 

 

I agree that 4s across the statline make marines "above average, but not great" at melee.  Effectively getting 5 attacks per model on the charge does, however, slide them across into the category of "awesome."  When you get HoW...even when you don't...4 attacks on the charge (including the pistol shot) is pretty freaking good.  Add in the ability to pick your target by virtue of being faster than anything but bikes, and they're extremely effective.  Not worth 25PPM...but definitely worth 17.

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

Jeremy, Fully agree add a chappy and they can actually lay the hurt.

 

March10K You said it perfectly. Add a chappy and they're more expensive but they can jump over terrain and get a good charge off on two troop choices and you've just made up the points for the unit as well as killing two scoring units of your enemies. What else I find is your enemy underestimates them regularly and if you follow the "shoot the choppy, and choppy the shooty units" they are good at what they do for the points. Add in that you wont feel bad about sacrificing them for good speed bump or a chance to get more shots on a deathstar type when you get the chance.

 

Overall my favorite bit is that people almost always bash them when you put them on the table and then when they perform well they are shocked and amazed and usually blame good dice rolls. Add to that the "cool" factor and I'll always attempt to bring some for my shooty army.

[Syphid]

I'm considering fielding a 5 man squad armed with 3x Plasma Pistol with an Interrogator Chaplain armed with combi plasma in my next game against Chaos Space Marines.  That's 5 Plasma shots that re-roll to hit and to wound rolls of 1, and the usual benefits of having a Chaplain, for 260 Points.

[Brother Immolator]

Anyway, none of that matters, lol. I only field them in casual lists, for the fun of it. In competitive settings, it's deathwing for me. If I ran a dakkapole list, I would probably take a squad of jumpers.

Would have been nice if Assault Squads had Bolter options... Then they would be more DA like, and a useful unit with the Dakkapole...

That would be dangerously OP/make ravenwing squadrons a tad bit obsolete. I was of that mindset as well till I had a fun game and the opponent was one of the cool guys that lets you try out your mad ideas. There were no dakka poles back then.

All I can say is: Deepstrike, rapidfire. Gate of infinity, deepstrike rapid fire and charge and avenger into the mix.

Unless I'm mistaken, jump pack infantry aren't relentless, and unless they're standing still they would not really benefit from the SoD. Sorry, ravenwing beat them in that regard. In fact, it's because of ravenwing (RAS, BKs, the dark shroud) that assault marines seem so ho-hum. By themselves they seem like a solid unit, but when you only get 3 FA slots and you start to look at your other options, assault marines really don't seem as great anymore.

You dont need them to be relentless to do what I wrote above. You just need them to be able to fire and rapid firing allows you now to fire two shots at half range even if you move in this edition. My only mistake was on the charge part, so you can simply swap the avenger for another power, or even devination. No dakka poles required either, double bolter shots each round are good enough.

Bikes need a lot of space do that reliably and each round.

I'm

considering fielding a 5 man squad armed with 3x Plasma Pistol with an

Interrogator Chaplain armed with combi plasma in my next game against

Chaos Space Marines. That's 5 Plasma shots that re-roll to hit and to

wound rolls of 1, and the usual benefits of having a Chaplain, for 260

Points.

I would say take seraphicus if you can against space marines. He is better than a regular interrogator in that regard. However I dont know if he can take a jump pack.